Monday, December 31, 2012

Preacher Command"s Grand Ayatollah Kamikaze Flotilla fired up Persian nautical naughtiness on Friday with six-days maritime maneuvers in, on and about the Strait of Hormuz, the Sea of Oman, north of the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden and Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.

Revo Guard Rear Admiral Habibollah "Skippy" Sayyari splains thusly:

“Among the aims of the drill is to
display the capabilities of Iran’s Armed Forces and the Navy to defend
our country’s water borders and interests in line with establishing
durable security in the region and conveying the message of peace and
friendship to the neighboring states"

Cats in the drill will practice an operation to block the Strait
of Hormuz, which handles more than 20% of the world’s oil tanker
traffic and include 23 warships, led by the Jamaran (Mowj Class)

At the same incredible instant - Great Satan"s CVN 74 sweetly hits the hood after patrolling the Arabian Sea together with a guided missile cruiser USS Mobile Bay. Meanwhile, the amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu has entered the Oman’s port of Salalah on the Arabian Sea.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

WoW - the Watchers Council - it's the oldest, longest running cyber comte d'guere ensembe in existence - started online in 1912 by Sirs Jacky Fisher and Winston Churchill themselves - an eclective collective of cats both cruel and benign with their ability to put steel on target (figuratively - natch) on a wide variety of topictry across American, Allied, Frenemy and Enemy concerns, memes, delights and discourse.

Every week these cats hook up each other with hot hits and big phazed cookies to peruse and then vote on their individual fancy catchers.

Great Satan has begun a staged, five-year process that will see each of her three main stealth warplane types
deployed to bases near China. When the deployments are complete in
2017, Air Force F-22s and B-2s and Marine Corps F-35s could all be
within striking range of America’s biggest economic rival at the same
time. With Beijing now testing her own radar-evading jet fighters — two
different models, to be exact — the clock is counting down to a stealth
warplane showdown over the Western Pacific.

The gradual creation of the U.S. stealth strike force is an extension of
the Pentagon’s much-touted “strategic pivot” to the Pacific region, and
echoes the much faster formation, earlier this year, of a similar (but
only partially stealthy) aerial armada in the Persian Gulf. That team of F-22s, non-stealthy F-15s and specialized “Bacon” radio-translator planes was clearly meant to deter a belligerent Iran, although the Pentagon denied it.

To be fair, the B-2s, F-22s and F-35s aren’t expected to fight alone.
Besides the existing Pacific force structure of F-15s, F-16s, A-10s and
other warplanes, drones and support aircraft, the Pentagon is planning
on sending in the Navy’s new P-8 patrol plane and, eventually, the Air
Force’s still-unbuilt KC-46 tanker.

Still, it’s possible that all three radar-evading planes could be flying
together over the blue waters of the Pacific as early as five years
from now. By that time China might have built and deployed combat-ready versions of its own J-20 and J-31
stealth fighters. That doesn’t mean the two aerial armadas will be
fighting each other, of course. Conventional war with China is, and will
likely remain, unnecessary and unlikely.

For both sides the planned stealth strike forces are all about showing
off, and impressing your rival so much that actually fighting him seems
unthinkable. And that’s a good thing.

Sounds great! Unless, you know - it works out about as well as the Great Britain/Deutschland Dreadnaught creating race from last century - and begats us all a new Jutland

Well, four short years later, by 44’s lights, Afghanistan is no longer the necessary war but a war to be ignored, a war to be “ended” regardless of the strategic consequences of doing so precipitously.

Of course, saying the war will end on schedule doesn’t make it reality—a fact Afghans know all too well. With the Taliban on their heels but not defeated, Pakistani intelligence releasing incarcerated Taliban back onto the streets, roadmaps being drawn up for “peace talks” that would allow hardcore Taliban officials into Afghan governing posts, sounds like a state headed toward Hobbes’s “war of all against all.

The tragedy is that this needn’t be the case. As limited an effort as the surge in Afghanistan has been, it’s had real success. In Helmand and Kandahar, previously key Taliban strongholds, American, Afghan, and allied forces have cleared insurgent bastions and defeated every attempt by the Taliban over the past year to regain their lost territory. But because the administration was determined to go “light” on the number of surge troops and then draw them down more rapidly than had been recommended by commanders, the original plan to tackle simultaneously the insurgent presence in Afghanistan’s eastern provinces was never executed.

Now, with the anticipated drawdown of the remaining troops over the next year, a full-on counterinsurgency effort in that region will never take place. In short, the insurgent cancer was going into remission but the White House, irrationally, wants to stop treatment.

Nor is it the case that Afghan security forces have not stepped up their game. When partnered with American and allied combat forces, Afghan troops have learned their trade and begun to fight well. However, they still lack the logistics, intelligence, and mobility capabilities needed to go it alone. Sustaining our combat and support efforts for just a few more years would ensure that when our combat teams do leave Afghanistan, there is a force in place that can effectively defend its own homeland.
Critics of the war like to point out that the Afghan conflict is the longest overseas war in American history—implying that it’s a hopeless case. Yet, for much of that time, the effort in Afghanistan was a holding action, with the war in Iraq eating up time, resources, and energy until the American surge and change in strategy in 2006-07 turned that conflict around. The nation might well be tired of war, but it’s only been a little over three years since President Obama announced his own surge and new strategy. When it comes to counterinsurgencies, a little patience goes a long way.
But this is not a patient president. The pattern for Iraq, Libya, and now Afghanistan has been basically the same. End American military involvement as soon as possible, and damn the consequences.

I am not deeply familiar with Michele Flournoy’s record at the Defense Department or with her overall qualifications to be Secretary of Defense, but I know about one aspect of her work as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy that weighs heavily on the plus scale in considering her credentials for that important post.When a new commander, Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, was sent to Afghanistan in November of 2009 to take charge of the mission of training and organizing Afghan Security Forces, Flournoy told him – very correctly – that the success of his mission was the key to US success in Afghanistan and she didn’t think we were doing it very well. “I’m not sure what it takes to do better, but we must do better and I hope you will tell me what we need to do.”In fact, the training mission was on the brink of failure. In the previous month, more personnel had left the Afghan Security Forces than had joined it. General Caldwell was given only 1,200 US personnel under his command, whereas he quickly concluded that the minimum requirement was for 3-4,000. But coming just months after a surge of combat troops, his requests for trainer support fell on deaf ears.The story might have ended there. But fortunately, Flournoy kept her finger on the pulse of “the details” and – working with General Caldwell and other military officers – was able to get the Pentagon to move with a speed that is rare in a place that is affectionately dubbed “the five-sided puzzle palace” by those who work in it. Admiral Mike Mullen, then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, directed that the next battalion arriving in Afghanistan be reassigned from a combat mission to a training mission.Over the next two years, under General Caldwell’s leadership and with Flournoy’s strong support, Afghan Security Forces grew from just under 200,000 to 305,000 when General Caldwell left and reached 352,000 this October.And the quality improved as well, although it still leaves much to be desired. Again, Flournoy played an important role, backing up General Caldwell when he pushed for basic literacy education for Afghan recruits, an initiative that wasn’t part of the typical mission statement.The resulting training in minimal basic literacy – and in other “civilian” skills such as driver education – has improved both the effectiveness and the morale of Afghan soldiers.None of this would have happened if one three-star general hadn’t had the moral courage to challenge bureaucratic inertia, and if a senior civilian named Michele Flournoy hadn’t encouraged him to do so even before he took command. Flournoy understood the importance of empowering Afghans to fight for their own country. By insisting that General Caldwell report problems to her, she enabled him to say – when challenged for “taking complaints outside the chain of command” – that he was merely answering his civilian superiors honestly, as he was obliged to do.Flournoy grasped the fundamental strategic point: That the only way to win in Afghanistan is to empower friendly Afghans to take on most of the burden of keeping their country out of the hands of the Taliban. And the numbers of Afghan casualties suggest that they are doing so. Estimates of casualties for Afghan Security Forces this year alone total roughly 3,400 killed (1,200 Army and 2,200 National Police), which is more than ten times the number of Americans killed this year and more than the total of all coalition fatalities – hostile and non-hostile, US and non-US – during the eleven years of this long and difficult war.Those are grim numbers, but they show that Afghans are bearing an increasing share of the war’s burden. As they should. After all, it’s their own country that they’re fighting for. But it’s also vital for Great Satan to prevent the Taliban from returning to power in Afghanistan, so we have a huge stake in the Afghan Security Forces.Flournoy not only grasped the centrality of that strategic point, but she pursued it skillfully and without seeking credit for what she did.

Now, as far as I know, none of this has been reported before.

Yet it deserves to be.It leads me to think that Flournoy might be the best possible candidate for the top Pentagon job during the coming difficult years in Afghanistan. She does not seem to be someone who would comfortably let that war be lost.

Monday, December 24, 2012

"...You, the officers and men of this American Army must remember that you are free men fighting for the blessings of liberty.

"...At this fateful hour the eyes of all our countrymen are
now upon us. The eyes of the world are watching. Let us show them all
that a freeman contending for Liberty is superior to any slavish
mercenary on earth.

"...And when the hour is upon us fight for all that you are worth and
all that you cherish and love. The fate of unborn millions will now
depend, under God, on the courage and conduct that you show."

Saturday, December 22, 2012

WoW - the Watchers Council - it's the oldest, longest running cyber comte d'guere ensembe in existence - started online in 1912 by Sirs Jacky Fisher and Winston Churchill themselves - an eclective collective of cats both cruel and benign with their ability to put steel on target (figuratively - natch) on a wide variety of topictry across American, Allied, Frenemy and Enemy concerns, memes, delights and discourse.

Every week these cats hook up each other with hot hits and big phazed cookies to peruse and then vote on their individual fancy catchers.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

The inevitable tendency of slavery is to concentrate in a few hands the
soil, the capital, and the power of the countries where it exists... they fail, by the inherent vice of their constitution and its
attendant consequences, to create enlightened, powerful, and advancing
communities of men, which is the true object of all political
organization.

The leading demographic accounts of contemporary slavery project a
global slave population of between 20 million and 30 million people.
Most of these people are in sedentary forms of slavery, such as
hereditary collateral-debt bondage. But about 20 percent have been
unwittingly trafficked though the promise of opportunity by predators
through
varying combinations of deception and coercion, very mobile, very
dynamic, leveraging communications and logistics in the same basic way
modern businesses do generally.

Children literally sold by parents or relatives in order to pay off debt
or to lessen their economic burden. The highest ratios of slaves
worldwide are from South and Southeast Asia, along with China, Russia,
Albania, Belarus, and Romania. There is a significant slave presence
across North Africa and the Middle East, including Lebanon. There is also a major slave trade in Africa.
Descent-based slavery persists in Mauritania, where children of slaves
are passed on to their slave-holders' children. And the North Korean gulag system, which holds 200,000 people, is essentially a constellation of slave-labor camps.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates the number of slaves in the world today at around 21 million. Kevin Bales, of Free the Slaves
-- the U.S. affiliate of the world's oldest human-rights organization,
the U.K.-based Anti-Slavery International -- (and the author of Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy) puts it at 27 million. Siddharth Kara of Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy says more than 29 million.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

"An alliance between foreign jihadists and some Syrians that risks tearing the country apart, leading to religious extremism, long-term sectarian war, and the persecution of minorities and various civilian groups.

One thing is certain: the fight for Syria will last a long time, and will not end with the fall of the regime.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

While fictionalised representations of women working on the front lines of anti-terrorism may capture the popular imagination, their cooler-headed real-life equivalents appear to be showing their male colleagues how it should be done.According to Peter Bergen, the author and global security expert, “the prominent role that women played in the hunt for bin Laden was reflective of the largest cultural shift at the CIA in the past two decades”. Tamir Pardo, the director of Israel’s formidable Mossad agency, has reported finding that women are better-suited than men to several aspects of intelligence work – particularly at “suppressing their ego in order to attain the goal”.“Women have a distinct advantage in secret warfare because of their ability to multitask,” Mr Pardo said earlier this year. “Women are gifted at deciphering situations. Contrary to stereotypes, you see that women’s abilities are superior to men in terms of understanding the territory, reading situations, spatial awareness. When they’re good, they’re very good.” While Britain boasts two former women directors of a major intelligence agency in Baroness Manningham-Buller and Dame Stella Rimington – both, in part, inspirations for Judi Dench’s “M” in the recent James Bond films – the US has always given the top jobs to men. Tara Maller, a former CIA analyst, says that 44 has a chance to correct this, following David Petraeus’s recent resignation as CIA director, by appointing a woman to the role.

Shells shrieked overhead, mortars and machine guns fired, search lights
stabbed through the morning light. V1 buzz bombs dropped to the ground.
It was a complete surprise, and the defending Americans were completely unprepp'd.

After a day of hard fighting, the Germans broke through the American
front, surrounding most of an infantry division, seizing key crossroads,
and advancing their spearheads toward the Meuse River, creating the
projection that gave the battle its name.

Police in Paris enforced an all-night curfew. British
veterans waited nervously to see how the Americans would react to a
full-scale German offensive, and British generals quietly acted to
safeguard the Meuse crossings. Even American civilians who had thought
final victory was near were sobered by the Nazi onslaught.

But this was not 1940. The supreme Allied commander, General
Dwight D. Eisenhower rushed reinforcements to hold the shoulders of the
German penetration. Within days, Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. had
turned his Third U.S. Army to the north and was counterattacking against
the German flank. But the story of the battle of the Bulge is above all
the story of American soldiers.

Often isolated and unaware of the
overall picture, they did their part to slow the Nazi advance, whether
by delaying armored spearheads with obstinate defenses of vital
crossroads, moving or burning critical gasoline stocks to keep them from
the fuel-hungry German tanks, or coming up with questions on arcane
Americana to stump possible Nazi infiltrators.

At the critical road junctions of St. Vith and Bastogne,
American tankers and paratroopers fought off repeated attacks, and when
the acting commander of the 101st Airborne Division in Bastogne was
summoned by his German adversary to surrender, he simply responded, "Nuts!"

Within days, Patton's Third Army had relieved Bastogne, and to
the north, the 2d U.S. Armored Division stopped enemy tanks short of the
Meuse on Christmas Day. Through January, American troops, often wading
through deep snow drifts, attacked the sides of the shrinking bulge
until they had restored the front and set the stage for the final drive
to victory.

Never again would NSDAP Time Deutschland be able to launch an offensive in the
West on such a scale. An admiring British Prime Minister Sir Winston
Churchill stated, "This is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of
the war and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever-famous American
victory." Indeed, in terms of participation and losses, the battle of
the Bulge is arguably the greatest battle in American military history.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

WoW - the Watchers Council - it's the oldest, longest running cyber comte d'guere ensembe in existence - started online in 1912 by Sirs Jacky Fisher and Winston Churchill themselves - an eclective collective of cats both cruel and benign with their ability to put steel on target (figuratively - natch) on a wide variety of topictry across American, Allied, Frenemy and Enemy concerns, memes, delights and discourse.

Every week these cats hook up each other with hot hits and big phazed cookies to peruse and then vote on their individual fancy catchers.

Friday, December 14, 2012

The 1962 war lasted 42 days, longer than the 1965 war (38 days). Even after China unilaterally declared a ceasefire on November 21, 1962, its troops kept firing on the outgunned and outnumbered Indian troops in the East. The war really ended on December 1 when China, while holding on to its territorial gains on the Aksai Chin plateau, began withdrawing its forces from the East, simply because it did not have the logistics capability to maintain forces across the McMahon Line once snow cut off mountain passes. The war — which ranks as the world’s highest-altitude full-blown war in post-World War II history — left 3,270 Indian troops dead, compared with over 1,100 military men killed in the 1947-48 war; 3,264 in 1965; 3,843 in 1971; 1,157 in Operation Pawan in Sri Lanka; and 522 in Kargil. Yet a couple of analysts at a Mumbai seminar last week had the temerity to call 1962 a “skirmish”.By baring key elements of Beijing’s strategic doctrine, 1962 indeed holds lasting lessons for India and other countries locked in territorial disputes with China.Here are some of the 1962 principles China replicated in its subsequent aggressions:Take the adversary by surprise to maximise political and psychological shockStrike only when the international and regional timing is opportuneHit as fast and as hard as possible by unleashing ‘human wave’ assaultsBe willing to take military gamblesMask offence as defenceWage war with the political objective to ‘teach a lesson’, an aim publicly acknowledged in the 1962 and 1979 invasions

Sitting in what surely feels like a retirement come too early, Petraeus must wonder where he will rank in the pantheon of American generals.

In recent years, the most esteemed officer in America—the very model of the modern general—was David Petraeus, whose public image combined the theorizing of the new school with a patina of old-fashioned toughness and rectitude. Before a sex scandal forced him to step down as the director of the C.I.A., a few weeks ago, he was widely regarded by politicians and journalists as a brilliant thinker and leader, the man who saved America in Iraq and might work a similar miracle in Afghanistan.

It’s too soon to tell exactly, of course, but his legacy looks reasonably clear. Iraq was a bloody tie, but without his extraordinary efforts it would have been much worse. Afghanistan, which he was called in to rescue, looks as if it will end badly. That’s probably not enough to get him into the temple with Ike, but, given the wars that he was handed, it’s hard to imagine an American general who could have done better. Petraeus was lucky—just not lucky enough.

The Al Nusrah Front has by far taken the lead among the jihadist groups in executing suicide and other complex attacks against the Syrian military. The terror group has now claimed credit for 42 of the 51 suicide attacks that have taken place in Syria in the past 12 months. The group has also conducted numerous other attacks against the Syrian military and government.
Known to conduct joint operations with other Syrian jihadist organizations. In mid-November, Al Nusrah reported that it attacked a base in Idlib along with the Ahrar al Sham Brigades, and even shot down a Syrian MiG fighter aircraft.

Al Nusrah has become more appealing to Syrian rebels as the group's fighters are better organized and have expertise from waging jihad in Iraq and elsewhere, and have integrated their operations with the Free Syrian Army.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

When the UN granted non mem peeking Tom privs to the twin Palestines - the West Bank and the rocket rich Strip's Preacher Command - Little Satan fired back by announcing more shopping malls, apartments and bookstores will be all crunk up in E 1 Wester Bank - effectively LOLing any chiz about the 2 State Solution.Europa freaked and talked about recalling their ambassadors to Little Satan. And Great Satan didn't really do much at all.It's 44's new Palestine/Little Satan strat: Benign Neglect!See,

Contrary to reports in Little Satan's press, Team 44 didn’t mastermind the angry European response. But neither did they tamp it down. Even though E1 has long been an American red line. And even though the Israelis alerted the White House mere hours before they announced the decision, the Obama administration’s response was pro forma and bland. Publicly, 44 said nothing. It was the first sign of what senior administration officials predict may be a new approach to the conflict in 44’s second term: benign neglect.Consider the view from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. On the one hand, BiBi keeps doing things—like expanding settlements and refusing to accept the 1967 lines as the parameters for peace talks—that American officials consider bad for America and catastrophic for Little Satan. On the other, every time 44 has tried to make Netanyahu change course—in 2009 when he demanded a settlement freeze and in 2011 when he set parameters for peace talks—the White House has been politically clobbered. Administration officials might like to orchestrate BiBi’s defeat in next month’s Little Satan's elections, as 42 did when he sent political consultants to convince cats to replace BiBi with Ehud in 1999. But they can’t because BiBi has no serious rivals for power.So instead of confronting BiBi directly, Team 44 has hit upon a different strategy: stand back and let the rest of the world do the confronting. Once America stops trying to save Little Satan from the consequences of her actions, the logic goes, and once she feels the full brunt of its mounting international isolation, her leaders will be scared into changing course.

Administration officials are quick to note that this new approach does not mean America won’t help protect Little Satan militarily through anti-missile defense systems like the much-heralded Iron Dome. And they add that Great Satan will strongly resist any Palestinian effort to use its newfound U.N. status to bring lawsuits against Little Satan at the International Criminal Court. America will also try to prevent further spasms of violence: by maintaining the funding that keeps Mahmoud Abbas afloat in the West Bank and by working with Egypt to restrain Hamas.

Really?Look - few cats in Little Satan fear Europa and any press press pressure (pressure) they may bear would prob only make Bibi more better in the rough and crazy tumble of Little Satan's Parliamentary politics. And if ICC chiz is to be all LOLing blocked by Great Satan anywrought - kinda hard to see ointment for the flies.

Team 44 had better hope its hands-off strategy for saving the two-state solution works. Because at this rate, by the time they’re ready to try something else, it will be too late.

That’s a mystery, but the one reason that should concern us involves
Iran. In short, Tehran needs a launch vehicle for the warhead it has
been developing, and the North Koreans need a successful test for their
best missile customer.

For more than a decade, Pyongyang and Tehran have run what is
essentially a joint missile development program. Iranian observers, for
instance, were present in the North
for all four of its long-range missile tests, those in 1998, 2006,
2009, and this April. Moreover, American intelligence sources indicate
Iran tested a North Korean missile for Pyongyang and the North almost certainly provides missile flight-test data to Iran.

In view of these links, it’s no surprise that Iran’s Shahab-3 is based on a North Korean Nodong missile and more advanced Iranian missiles, the Shahab-5 and Shahab-6, appear to be variants of North Korea’ long-range Taepodong models.

Iran has been financing the North Korean program either by purchasing
the North’s missiles or by sharing development costs and receiving
missiles in return. Tehran’s support explains how a destitute North
Korea has the funds to carry on a sophisticated weapons program. In
early September the two countries signed a technical cooperation agreement.

More ominously, Japan’s Kyodo News on Sunday reported
that Iran started stationing personnel in North Korea in October at a
military facility close to the Chinese border. The Iranians, from the
Ministry of Defense and associated firms, are there to develop stronger
cooperation on missile and nuclear programs, according to an unnamed
Western diplomatic source.

Analysts have puzzled over the timing of Pyongyang’s launch,
especially because it comes in close proximity to the December 19th
South Korean presidential election. Most observers believe the attempt
to orbit a satellite—essentially a ballistic missile test prohibited by
two sets of Security Council resolutions—will boost the prospects of the
candidate that Pyongyang detests, Park Geun-hye of the ruling Saenuri
Party. Park is more skeptical of North Korea than her dovish rival, and a
launch would tend to validate her position just before the balloting.

Some Korea watchers speculate
that Kim Jong Un wants to mark the first year of his rule with a
“celebratory firework.” That is possible too, but, whatever the reason
for the launch, the Iranians will get the benefit of the exercise. Yes,
the test will take place on Korean soil, but we need to keep thinking
about Iran.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

WoW - the Watchers Council - it's the oldest, longest running cyber comte d'guere ensembe in existence - started online in 1912 by Sirs Jacky Fisher and Winston Churchill themselves - an eclective collective of cats both cruel and benign with their ability to put steel on target (figuratively - natch) on a wide variety of topictry across American, Allied, Frenemy and Enemy concerns, memes, delights and discourse.

Every week these cats hook up each other with hot hits and big phazed cookies to peruse and then vote on their individual fancy catchers.

Friday, December 7, 2012

The 7 December 1941 Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor was one of the
great defining moments in history. A single carefully-planned and
well-executed stroke removed the United States Navy's battleship
force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward
expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was
abruptly brought into the Second World War as a full combatant.

Eighteen months earlier, 32 had
transferred the United States Fleet to Pearl Harbor as a presumed
deterrent to Japanese aggression. The Japanese military, deeply engaged
in the seemingly endless war it had started against China in mid-1937,
badly needed oil and other raw materials. Commercial access to these
was gradually curtailed as the conquests continued.

In July 1941 the Western powers effectively halted trade with
Japan. From then on, as the desperate Japanese schemed to seize the
oil and mineral-rich East Indies and Southeast Asia, a Pacific war was
virtually inevitable.

By late November 1941, with peace negotiations clearly
approaching an end, informed U.S. officials (and they were
well-informed, they believed, through an ability to read Japan's
diplomatic codes) fully expected a Japanese attack into the Indies,
Malaya and probably the Philippines. Completely unanticipated was the
prospect that Japan would attack east, as well.

The U.S. Fleet's Pearl Harbor base was reachable by an aircraft
carrier force, and the Japanese Navy secretly sent one across the
Pacific with greater aerial striking power than had ever been seen on
the World's oceans. Its planes hit just before 8AM on 7 December.
Within a short time five of eight battleships at Pearl Harbor were sunk
or sinking, with the rest damaged. Several other ships and most
Hawaii-based combat planes were also knocked out and over 2400
Americans were dead.
Soon after, Japanese planes eliminated much of the American air force
in the Philippines, and a Japanese Army was ashore in Malaya.

These great Japanese successes, achieved without prior diplomatic
formalities, shocked and enraged the previously divided American people
into a level of purposeful unity hardly seen before or since. For the
next five months, until the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May, Japan's far-reaching offensives proceeded untroubled by fruitful opposition.

American and Allied morale suffered accordingly. Under normal
political circumstances, an accomodation might have been considered.

However, the memory of the "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor fueled a determination to fight on.

Once the Battle of Midway
in early June 1942 had eliminated much of Japan's striking power, that
same memory stoked a relentless war to reverse her conquests and
remove her, and her German and Italian allies, as future threats to
World peace.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Suriya al- Kubra!As the eons long civil war in Syria drags on, tons of non profit jaw flapping about the illegit Dr General President For Life potentialityfor unleashing nasty nasty chemicalicious warfare on his very own peeps

WHY NOW?

After twenty months of internal war, the regime is in an increasingly difficult military situation. It suffered substantial reverses in
November, losing territory, positions, troops, and equipment, including
combat aircraft. The fighting capacity of its forces appears to be
diminishing, and its standard tactic of bombing and shelling opposition
areas, primarily civilian, is becoming less effective and more costly
due to rebel antiaircraft fire and other tactics. As a result, pressure
is undoubtedly rising within the regime to take different and more
effective action -- that has been the pattern for Damascus since the
emergence of armed opposition in summer 2011.

THE REGIME'S CHEMICAL ARSENAL

Syria has a formidable CW capability. Its large inventory reportedly
includes the nerve agents sarin and possibly VX, as well as mustard gas,
a blister agent. Means of delivery include aerial bombs, missiles
(e.g., Scuds), and artillery shells and rockets.

The Syrian military is trained to use these weapons and has the
doctrine, forces, and munitions to carry out such attacks. These forces
can reach anywhere in the country, and there is very little the
opposition Free Syrian Army could do to stop them. Without intelligence
warnings from external sources, rebel combatants and civilians would be
highly vulnerable to surprise chemical attacks, increasing the chances
for major casualties.

CW SCENARIOS

The regime could use chemical weapons in a variety of ways, from a
limited or demonstration attack to large-scale offensive or defensive
use to fundamentally change the military situation. At present, reports
that the regime is weaponizing relatively small quantities of agent
suggest the former. Limited CW use could be controlled better in terms
of effects and visibility. The regime might also find it easier to
explain away small-scale strikes as the work of "terrorists" or as a
justifiable response to the military situation and the threat to the
country.

One form of limited attack could be a strike against a specific
military target, aimed at affecting a local but important tactical
situation. Such an attack would also demonstrate that the regime was
ready, willing, and able to carry out such actions.

The regime could also conduct small-scale strikes on civilian targets
to intimidate the population or punish them for supporting the rebels.
This would be an escalation from the regime's routine use of explosives
and incendiary weapons against civilians and could produce substantially
greater casualties. It would undoubtedly have profound psychological
effects on an essentially defenseless population.

As for broader CW use, the regime could employ such weapons to support
ground offensives in key areas where its forces have been unable to
achieve success via conventional tactics (e.g., around Maarrat al-Numan
in Idlib province; in and around Aleppo city; in Deir al-Zour province,
perhaps near Abu Kamal or Mayadin). It could use them to support
defensive operations in places where rebel forces are on the offensive
(e.g., the relatively remote Raqqa province) or have regime forces
surrounded (as happened at the 46th Regiment base near Atareb in Aleppo
province and the artillery fire base at Mayadin; in both cases, the
positions fell to the rebels after prolonged siege and final assault).
Using CW in close proximity to its own forces would be risky, but the
military has some chemical defense equipment and training and might be
able to provide a measure of protection.

The regime could also use persistent CW agents for area denial,
striking lines of communication, shelters, and medical and food
facilities to prevent rebels and civilians from using them. Finally,
local military commanders operating independently of the government
could decide to use CW on their own, whether out of revenge,
frustration, fear, or other motivations. This would of course depend on
access to munitions and delivery means, but in conditions where units
are isolated or the chain of command is breaking down, such use is
possible.

REGIME CONSTRAINTS

Unfortunately, the international community's track record so far may
have given Assad a bad lesson regarding the potential consequences of CW
use. The regime's massive escalation of violence throughout the war --
including use of field artillery against civilians, aerial bombing of
population centers, and routine use of cluster munitions -- has gone
largely unpunished, and Damascus has likely concluded that raising the
stakes even higher would carry few real repercussions. It may therefore
believe it can get away with limited CW use.

In theory, various political constraints could deter the regime from
such a course. These include a likely irreparable break with the
country's entire Sunni population, a probable rupture in relations with
China and Russia, and great embarrassment for its allies Iran and
Hizballah. More important, CW use would probably mobilize the West and
Sunni Arab states to directly intervene in the conflict, sealing the
regime's fate. Additionally, all those involved in ordering and carrying
out CW attacks would risk international judicial action -- a prospect
that could spur some regime members to mount a coup. Finally, the regime
would have to deal with the massive public relations disaster that CW
use would bring.

There are also military constraints. Chemical weapons are not just
another device that can be pulled from storage and fired -- regime
forces must also consider accuracy and reliability issues,
meteorological factors (wind, humidity, temperature), agent choices
(persistent vs. nonpersistent), and consequence-management issues
(treatment of casualties, force protection, decontamination).

IMPACT OF CW USE

If the regime does decide to use chemical weapons, it could have
significant effects on the military situation. The rebels have no
protection against CW and no training to deal with such weapons; they
barely even have experience with the effects of riot-control agents and
smoke. They would be highly vulnerable, and the regime could achieve
tactical or broader gains.

Politically, CW use could weaken the opposition, undermining the
all-important link between the civilian population and the armed rebels.
The significance of this deterioration would depend on the resilience
of the population, which so far has proven steadfast in the face of all
regime attacks.
There would also be humanitarian consequences, including probable
refugee flows out of affected areas, the need to treat casualties, and
decontamination requirements. The ability of NGOs and humanitarian
groups to continue operations in such conditions would be tested.

CONCLUSION

44 reiterated that Great Satan would not
accept the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime, and that there
would be consequences for such use. Although Great Satan issued similar
warnings in the past, the situation has changed, and the administration
must be prepared to have its declaration tested. CW use is by no means a
given, but the potential has gone up substantially and will grow as the
regime's fall comes closer.

Upholding Great Satan's declaration requires readiness to commit armed
forces to eliminating Syria's CW capability and punishing the regime and
its forces for using them. It means having military assets earmarked or
in place to act quickly with overwhelming force, and to deal with the
post-attack environment. It does not mean relying on diplomacy as the
sole or even main response. Failure to respond with force to any use of
chemical weapons would be dire. The regime would see it as a signal to
conduct more attacks, and the opposition would see it as a complete
abandonment.

wHoA!

h0t!

~hEy Y"all! DoN"t MiSs GsGf~!

Guaranteed to magically transform subscribers into superior intellectuals, worldly, pious, witty, cool, fun to be with, irresistable, au courant and all together with it. Amaze friends, confound enemies and revel in the envy and righteous respect of peers.